“If the investors come in and have got endless amounts of money, they could sign Sanchez, for example. It depends who these new owners are. I’m not saying he’ll go there and they could instead trawl down the bottom part of the league – you just don’t know how much money they’ll have. When you look at Sheikh Mansour when he came to Manchester City and signed Robinho. Will these people have that money to spend or will it be a bit more of shopping down the ladder?
“If they get the right investment, hopefully Rafa can strengthen in January – that will be hugely important. If they don’t then they could be under a bit of pressure. Rafa has even quoted himself saying he wanted players in the summer but didn’t get the money from Mike Ashley again. This takeover deal needs to happen in the next few weeks so he can get the right backing in January. I do believe they can get back up challenging for the Premier League and Champions League football. It will take time but it’s a great stadium, the fans are unreal and it’s a big club.”